Favorite films

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  ★★★★½

Pinned reviews

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  The Evil Dead 1981

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by Ian West 28 Jul 2018 35

  The ultimate Cabin in the woods. 

  A headstrong manic panic descent into low budget hyper terror demon crazy. Audacious, innovative, and most importantly... scary, this movie does more with less than most pictures do with piles of cash as genre hooligans Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell achieve euphoric gore drenched viscera of the highest order. A game changer, beyond influential, and one hell of a genre monolith, The Evil Dead rests buried back a bit in the trees... waiting for fresh tendril viewers to peak…

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  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974

  ★★★★★ Rewatched by Ian West 04 Jul 2020 42

  A trip to no-hopesville—a spiral into unhinged southern gothic terror.

  A beautifully shot slice of sun-choked Texas sizzle that’s 110% certified grade-A impenetrable to critique, and one of the most important films ever made—horror in its purist form. The kind of raw sweat-drenched monolithic genre art that extinguishes a symbolic flame of hope inside of you, leaving but an empty husk of a viewer... forever changed.

  The ultimate horror film.

Recent reviews

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  Don't Deliver Us from Evil 1971

  ★★★★ Rewatched by Ian West 26 May 2022 1

  Natural Born Sinners. 

  Don’t Deliver Us from Evil is a depraved coming of age story of friendship steeped in satanic vows, cruel intentions, forbidden books, and a macabre atmosphere—which was just what I was in the mood for. It’s sleazier than it is violent, controversial for its time, and if you ask me it still packs quite a punch when it comes to how real the two girls’ friendship felt, as well their evolution into the world of cruelty and perversion—the dark and the wicked… Heavenly Creatures.

  Hopefully this gets a nice remaster one day… fingers crossed!

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  Terror Is a Man 1959

  ★★★½ Watched by Ian West 22 May 2022 3

  The first time I watched this a few years back I was not expecting a classy yet slightly pervy atmospheric Dr. Moreau Blood Island jam or what it had to offer. 

  Terror Is a Man features some solid camerawork, a talky script that never outstays it’s welcome, great atmosphere, and that always admirable low budget-high effort Val Lewton-esque charm on full display—making for an effectively spooky little picture that grasps its terror by way of its restraint and I dug…

Popular reviews

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  Malignant 2021

  ★★★★★ Watched by Ian West 10 Sep 2021 104

  Malignant feels like an unhinged James Wan directing a Corman produced Sam Raimi supernatural giallo-esque grindhouse joint written by Frank Henenlotter.

  This is James Wan’s Ghosthouse, an everything to 11 pulpy trash kitchen sink movie that doubles down on the gore while still pulling off those slow zoom tense set-pieces he’s become known for. It looks gorgeous, I loved the score, and it uniquely meshes genres while upping the frantic nature of big budget late summer horror with Wan’s usual…

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  In the Tall Grass 2019

  ★★★½ Watched by Ian West 22 Sep 2019 14

  Lawn of the Dead.